ok, so I have solved all our problems using good ol' pencil and paper.

All you need for autofire is THIS!

Let me explain how it works. First you roll skill to see how many shots you can take. Now comes the fun part:

To make a shot, simply stand a pencil up on one of the 5 circles in the middle of the paper (which one you choose depends on your distance to the intended targets, as you'll notice the paper is marked off every half inch). Take your index finger and place it on the eraser of the pencil so that the pencil is balancing on it's tip. Gently press downward at a slight angle so that the tip of the pencil slides across the paper. leaving a mark.

Now there should be a straight line on the paper indicating where your shot went. If it did not reach the target, you may measure out where it would have gone with a ruler to see if you've scored a hit. This is worth weapon damage+ 1 to whatever target you hit. If the line actually touches one of the targets, this does weapon damage+2 to that target.

If you're following me up to this point, you will know that this is not a complicated process at all. Simply select which targets you're aiming at, place your pencil on the paper and let fly. Up to 5 targets are represented by the 5 heads (and there is 1 set for each team). The boxes in the corners represent random objects or scenery that can be thrown into the mix for stray bullet fun. Let's say 2 units are standing in front of a propane tank, maybe it would be nicer to aim just over their shoulders instead?

If you want to shoot at an object larger than a minifig, simply place the actual unit on the paper and proceed as normal. The great thing about this system is that if you miss, it's your own fault! If you suck, then your minifigs suck, if not, it's time to start building more automatic weapons!

however, i talked specifically to benny over aim for full clarification of the rules for it. it IS skill based, and it fully compensates for everything. he said he'll make another post to clarify things for the rest of us, so i'll let him tell you these things. i hammered out a few things to ensure that we got this all right, but we're in the clear!

EDITED EDIT: okay, he still left a bit slightly confusing. for more clarification, you want to visualize figs of how they are in relation to eachother. so, if you want to shoot your gun at 2 minifigs standing next to eachother with some object directly behind them. to represent this, use either the far right or far left minifigs, depending on your political alliance.

then, you approximate how far away the fig is, and match it up as close as you can with a dot. then proceed away!

EDITED EDITED EDIT: Benny and i are not dapper together.

Last edited by IVhorseman on Mon Jan 28, 2008 1:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

oh, I just edited the OP but thanks for filling them in. Yeah I want you all to at least try this on a blank piece of paper before posting, because it really does work.

Also before you ask, note that the UR is built in, you only actually attack the targets you hit so that if you miss every shot, then you really just missed every shot. We also made it a rule that for every 1/3 cover the target is hiding behind, you move back one dot. If you're already at the last dot, then you never really had a chance at hitting that unit anyway.

Horsey was a huge help in hammering out the details, that's why I need him as backup.

You'll need a uge amount of paper for larger scale battles and it will take very much time. Your Design will work absolutely perfect on a skirmish level, with about 10 figs on each side. But what about larger battles with Squads of 10 or more Assault troopers? I think this can get quite problematic.

It's pencil and paper, and the marks are very light so erasing is not a problem. You really only need one sheet for every 2 people per battle because it has 2 sides. I never play large squad based battles and so I'm not too familiar with the different rules, but I still can't imagine a single support gunner having to attack more than 5 units at a time. However, it would be very simple to re-orient the heads to accommodate 10 (or more) targets.

As for a squad made up of heavy gunners you simply give them each one shot instead of rolling each of their individual skill, and then increase the damage. It would be far too tedious to go through the entire process for each of them, but it really doesn't take too long to just run through it once or twice per turn, especially if you get crappy skill rolls.

Get a blank piece of paper and pencil. Note the approximate distance and position of your gunner relative to his/her target(s). Remove them from the battlefield along with any objects of opportunity and reorient them on the blank piece of paper. Replace the gunner with the pencil.

Roll the gunner's skill; this number is how many shots he/she may take. To take a shot, balance the pencil on it's tip and push down on it until it begins to slip. This is your shot and unless you are using a heavy mechanical pencil, the line should only be about 2 inches long. Use this as your "unit vector", and measure out where the shot would have gone with a ruler. If it would have passed through one of the minifigs on the paper, it does normal weapon damage to that unit, if the pencil actually touched/knocked over the unit (BOOM! HEADSHOT!), it does weapon damage +1. If you combine attacks on a single target, each additional attack does +1 damage rather than rolling weapon damage again.

You may place anything on the paper, from squads to vehicles to objects. All we're dealing with here are skill and damage rolls because UR is built in to the system based on how good you are at "flicking" the pencil. Also, move your gunner 1 inch back for every 1/3 cover his target is hiding behind. Honestly, this takes almost no brain power or memorization and is very quick and fun, so it does not slow down gameplay.

EDIT: Whenever you miss all of your shots, you need to spend a full turn reloading. The trick is to not make any one weapon type too favorable over the others, so I may need some help coming up with other minor drawbacks to using automatic weapons that aren't too complicated or confusing.

but do we have anything for covering large areas by spraying them with bullets? because i'm noticing that this is lacking in this ruleset.

however, i've been considering lumping this version of ranged attack into another weapon class entirely: heavy machineguns. designed for covering large areas with bullets, and capable of suppression fire (slows down minifigs in the open, forces those in cover to remain behind cover).

Now that I look at this again, I'm thinking that it might be necessary to reload after every turn in which you attack more than 1 unit. Otherwise, who's to say that Clint Eastwood with a revolver couldn't kill more guys than Arnold with an M4 in the same amount of time? It doesn't seem right for you friend's medium infantry to be able to attack 5 of yours in one turn and then 5 more the next, even though this is the nature of the machine gun.

It stands to reason that minifigs care far more about the finer points of firing automatics such as closing your eyes and screaming, than the superfluous ones such as "aiming" or "conserving ammo".

i think even THINKING ammo falls under those superfluous terms. and clint and ahnold would match anyways, due to heroic feats etc.

i think that the only reloads that need to be done are when you miss every single shot. your minifig feels so bad at not being able to cause damage that he feels like he dosen't have anything better to do than reload. so the next turn he spends reloading.

that, and having to spend a turn reloading every other turn would get tedious, boring, and hard to keep track of (and before you say they can just switch to single fire more often, i've a counter to that. automatic fire is to single shot as heavy metal is to smooth jazz. minifigs will flip the switch to rock n roll in every situation they can, unless single shot is ABSOLUTELY required).

Oke this is all getting way too complicated for me now. I think there is a way more efficient way to do this. This is my system that IMO is way more simple it is called: the Fire-points system. For every Fire-point a gun has it may shoot as many targets in one turn. How much Fire-points A gun has is chosen by A ranking system:

Semi fire weapon: 1 FP
Auto fire 1#(assault rifles and such): 1FP and 2FP at 1/3 of weapon fire range
Auto fire 2#(LMGs and such): 1FP at full Range 2FP at 2/3 R and 3FP at 1/3 R
and maybe even A auto fire 3#?
Now wy at Auto fire 1# 2FP at 1/3 of the Range is because at such a range you would rather do some pay and spray then carefully look down your site to get a clean shot.

haha i know in explanation these all sound really complicated, but so far the top contenders (narrowed down to billingsly's system, benny's system and blitzen's late-entt\ry system) are actually simpler than your methods, suprisingly enough.

generally, most of us don't like memorizing how many shots each gun can shoot and at what ranges, so we try to avoid this.